Preparation And Properties Of Basalt Fiber Biaxial Warp-knitted Spacer Fabrics

Because of the unique 3D structure,warp knitted spacer fabrics have excellent properties such as light weight,air permeability,moisture permeability,sound insulation and slow compression buffer,etc.,and are widely used in the fields of clothing,decoration and industrial,especially as the reinforcement construction is more and more used in the field of textile composite materials.However,its soft surfaces result low strength,low impact resistance,limiting its further application in the field of industrial textiles.Basalt fiber bi-axial warp knitted spacer fabrics are the spacer fabrics in which basalt fiber is used as the warp and weft in-lay yarns in the two surface layers respectively,leading to good mechanical properties in both directions on the basis of the spacer structure features such as light weight,good air permeability,etc.Firstly,in this study,the basalt fibers were laid in both surface layers of knitted spacer fabrics as reinforcement yarns without buckling.The spacer layer structure and fabric thickness were selected as the two factors(in which the former has two levels of "I" type and "V" type,the latter has three levels of 8 mm,11 mm and 14 mm),after experimental designing by using the full factor experimental design method,6 fabrics with different parameter combinations were manufactured in our lab,and their specifications were evaluated.Then,compressive resilience properties of these fabrics are studied,the results show that spacer layer structure and fabric thickness significantly affect the compressive properties of the fabrics.The bigger the fabric thickness,the smaller the maximum pressure value withstand is.The stress relaxation rate of spacer fabrics with both "I" and "V" structures increases with the increase of thickness,while the stress relaxation rate of spacer fabrics with the same thickness of "V" type are slightly higher than those of "I" type ones.In the "I" type,the thickness loss rate increases with the increase of the fabric thickness,while in the "V" type fabric,the thickness loss rate decreases with the increase of the fabric thickness.After that,the tensile properties of the fabrics in both warp and weft directions were investigated,and the test results reveal that basalt fibers significantly enhance the tensile properties of the resultant fabrics.The spacer layer structure and fabric thickness have little influence on tensile performance.The experiment results also show that the basalt fibers provide greater strength with a smaller displacement range at the beginning of the stretching process.Finally,puncture resistance properties were tested and analyzed,the results show that,the spacer layer plays a cushioning role in the initial stage of puncture process,and the maximum puncture load is mainly borne by basalt fiber in-lay yarns.In both "I" and "V" type fabrics,the puncture strength,puncture displacement and energy absorption increase along with the increase of fabric thickness;under the same thickness,the fabric with "V" type structure have bigger test values in puncture strength,puncture displacement and energy absorption value than those of "I" type fabrics.